My goal is to alert any active users when a newer version of the app is published. I would do this by periodically checking the app's current release tag against the list of all releases, but there doesn't seem to be any way to fetch an app's current published version.
I'm aware of {{ retoolContext.pageTag }} but that's just the version the user is currently using. Is there some way to fetch an app's current release tag?
Hi @jch - welcome to the forums!
Good idea - it would be nice to have it natively supported (I don't know if/how). One workaround approach would be to create a table in your DB and push the latest version of the app into it each time you publish. Then you could check against that...not seamless, by any stretch, but perhaps workable?
I was thinking that, but it doesn’t seem like I can programmatically fetch the current app release version via an api and it doesn’t seem like I can trigger any downstream event from a publish. Updating the app version manually with each publish is error prone and not a workable solution. Am I missing something obvious to be able to get the current published app version?
You can use the _historyOffset URL parameter to always get the latest version (see here Version and release apps | Retool Docs). Not sure if you just want to make sure users are always in the latest version or if you want them to be able to check which version they are in.
Yes thanks I understand that. The issue is how do I retrieve this value from outside of the application. Consider the use case — if someone had an outdated app (ie their version is behind the currently published version, their release tag would always return their version tag, which is not the currently published version).
I’m trying to alert the user if a new version is released while they are currently using the app.
Hi @jg80 and @jch, we have an existing FR for this, I added your feedback to it. 
On the meantime, here is a topic where we explored how to get the latest release of an App on Self-hosted Retool:
any update on the FR?
This is pretty needed. Some of our users don't reload the app for months and they can corrupt data using old versions
Hi @Garr_Godfrey,
I just checked the ticket and it looks like it has a status of "no immediate intent" 
I just added a +1 from you to increase the ticket's weight. I fully understand how useful this functionality would be for users that do not often reload the app. There have recently been several other threads linked to this ticket as well so I can see it gaining some momentum.
Will keep you updated on any new developments I hear, just don't want to over promise anything.